zaphod2 alerts us to a storm brewing in Europe over access by US intelligence agencies to EU banking data. There is considerable opposition in Europe to extending this access. The submitter adds, "I wonder how long it takes until gambling, online games, or non-RIAA-approved music shops are considered supporters of terrorism." "US anti-terror officials want to be able to continue examining Europeans' financial transactions, and it appears likely that the European Union is going to comply. ... The US has been examining transactions handled by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions (SWIFT) since the 9/11 attacks... However, SWIFT, which is located in Belgium, is planning to move its servers and database — which is currently located in the US — to Europe. With data privacy laws far stricter in Europe, the US would then need permission from the EU before it could gain access to this sensitive information."
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday July 28, @05:14AM (#28849411)
"We are Team America..."
There is no "we". The violence of the U.S. government has not benefited U.S. citizens. If you got in the way of the controlling groups, they would kill you, delt0r, and your family.
"US anti-terror officials"
The "anti-terror" is only a smokescreen. The U.S. government spends more money on surveillance and war than any country in the history of the world. That taxpayer money partly helps some people profit, for example: House of Bush, House of Saud [amazon.com], and hurts U.S. taxpayers.
The U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the 2nd world war [evergreen.edu]. Most or all of the interference was for profit. Quote: '... although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites' The dictators pay the corrupters, of course.
U.S. citizens don't want to believe that their government is as corrupt as it is, even though the recent financial corruption has made many of them poor.
Whatever the US did earlier, which is interesting in itself, something does not compute right now. When 9/11 attacks happened, the US let terrorists profit from the future they had subscribed in abnormal quantity. Then US come to EU monitoring our activity? Medice, cura te ipsum. We are monitoring ordinary citizens and let corporations make business in fiscal paradises. This is a joke.
Someday U.S. taxpayers will have to pay-off that enormous debt, which is now the equivalent of $105,000 hanging over every home.
It would be nice if our politicians would grow-up, stop acting like teenagers with credit cards, and reduce spending. But no, instead they want to saddle us with a giant Uncle Sam healthcare program that we can not afford. By the end of Obama's term, that debt will have risen to ~$150,000 per home.
Pretty soon the entire U.S. will be like bankrupt California.
>>>billions spent per day in Iraq - and you blame it on helping people who need hospital treatment?
It's actually 0.9 trillion total cost. And yes the war in Iraq was just as much a waste as the proposed Uncle Sam healthcare (which will cost ~12 trillion per decade).
We need to STOP SPENDING.
Get it?
If you're carrying a debt of $105,000 per home, and expected to be $220,000 by 2020, you don't just keep spending more money and digging the whole deeper. You stop spending. Judas Priest. How much more
$11 trillion right now is real debt with projections of that doubling in a decade. We have a deficit 3-4x worse than Bush's worst deficit this year and are projecting deficits as bad as Bush's worst one for the rest of Obama's possible terms.
On top of that, add in another $75-90 trillion is in owed obligations for Medicare and Social Security. Unless you're willing to cut either, that's real debt too. Just because it isn't due today doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It starts coming due in 7 years (2016 for
And who decides what is terrorist acts? I for one would not want US government to access my financial activity. Not because I am a terrorist but simply because I do not want a foreign government to breach my privacy. A court order that allows MY government agencies to snoop is OK though. And as the post says. how long before US considers perfectly legal and reasonable acts to be terrorist acts?? Or for that matter simple petty crime to be terrorist acts. Furthermore... I am not so sure I want America to police the world unrestrained. Considering that it could easily be argued that US is not democratic (remember that GWB was appointed by a court that ordered the counting of votes stopped). Considering that it is a country that kills it's citizens. Considering that it holds prisoners without due court proceedings.
Well, America is all about freedom, anyway; Freedom to spy foreign citizens & businesses; freedom to bear arms; freedom of markets; freedom to initiate preemptive wars; freedom to sue and be sued over petty annoyances; freedom to lobby... Lots of freedom.
Actually America, as conceived, is not about freedom. It's about the individual and protection of his rights from overarching, overbearing politicians sick with power. That's why these individual rights (ownership of self, right to self-protection, right to privacy, et cetera) are encoded into the U.S. and 50 State Constitutions - to block the government and keep it under control, so the individual can live a life without being hassled at every turn.
Unfortunately in their rush to control everything like petit-dictators, the Congresscritters have decided to ignore the Supreme Laws. The phrase "shall be secure in their persons and papers" means nothing if Congress can look at your bnk account whenever they feel like it. "The two worst diseases are avarice and ambition - love of money and love of power. Leaders suffer from both." - Benjamin Franklin
>>>how long before US considers perfectly legal and reasonable acts to be terrorist acts??
If we deposit $10,000 or more in an account, the government makes a note of it and investigates. One local fellow was depositing $9900, $9500, $9600 in cash in order to avoid that requirement, but a suspicious Nazi... er, teller reported him anyway because he was "close enough". Then the stormtroopers... er, FBI arrested him for trying to avoid the $10,000 legel requirement.
This is the kind of society that the scared American people have created. "Any who would give up Essential liberty for temporary security deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin. All these problems would disappear if we simply enforced the Constitution as written. No warrant; no search of people or their effects (papers/bank accounts).
Having a central government of any kind monitoring this type of thing just won't work. The best we could probably do is set up an automated system which yells BEEP! when it sees a truly suspicious transaction; then amici curiae appointed by the PEOPLE in combination with a random system to prevent infiltrators - NOT the government - are allowed access and can check the records, and indicate action may be necessary. Then, every action these people must be logged and open to public scrutiny. The servers must
It's funny that they have so much vigilance, but they can't stop billions of euros illegally leaving the US and European economies towards fiscal havens where they pay no taxes and there's no accountability whatsoever. Want to fight terrorism? End the fiscal havens.
Fiscal havens played a very important part in creating the current economical crisis. Yet, the chicken shit governments of G8 and the world financial institutions haven't done shit to end this, besides a few cosmetic tricks.
This is like people in a small town protesting against the local brothel, but they all go there on Saturday night.
If I don't pay my taxes, the IRS will make my life miserable, they will come to my house and take my furniture, my car, etc. But Joe the CEO can transfer his savings to the Conga Bonga Islands through book manipulation and happily wait for retirement without paying a dime in taxes. And his money can be invested in drugs or weapons, there's no way to trace it.
Ok, I see it now. The article seems to imply (between much irrelevant filler...) that some of those highly speculative hedge funds also operate in tax havens.
Yeah, it's just the Financial Times and the guy is only a professor, so it must be all bullshit.
Therefore tax havens must be responsible for the crisis.
Bombing me with strawman arguments may seem fun, but gets old pretty fast.
Yes, it's all down to tax havens. All the biggest problems in the current crisis are down to those damnable tax havens and hedge funds etc. Like the following, all HQ'ed and "regulated" in well known tax havens:
Yes, if only those damn tax havens listed above were banned from doing business, the financial crisis would not have happened. If only banks were forced to be in "well regulated" onshore locations where there is accountability, there would be no recession
Now, that's just silly. When did exactly I said such?
And as we all know, bankers, lawyers and their associates in major cities are all highly ethical people
They're all greedy heartless bloodsucking motherfuckers but there is still some supervision and vigilance in regulated markets that prevents them to directly finance criminal activities. Of course, with the massive deregulation that took place in the latest years, accountability and responsibility are not in g
The agenda is to track everyone, politicians are colluding to make the world a worse place to live.
Why did the EU roll over for the US over flight passenger information, and require no such data to flow back to Europe of US citizens so THEY know how it feels to be treated like a criminal on entry to a country? Why are the EU so hell bent on everyone in Europe having ID cards, there are countries like the UK that have no ID cards, but attempts to roll them out to everyone. Why are the EU so desperate to trac
Quite true. Until not so long ago, even after the year 2001, I spent about a month per year in the US. You know, visiting people, traveling around, meeting important folks I haven't seen, BlackHat LV being a corner point most of the time. I haven't been for about four years now. Instead I follow the VB con around, as long as it avoids the US.
Reason? I don't want my laptop being searched, a collection of 0day trojans being found and, besides being questioned why those exist on there, possibly being held liab
There are rules on civilization, and one is privacy. Maybe it will be a good idea to let then see one bank account, If a judge able it, but not at random... that would be outlawdish!
I think terrorism has fully achieved its objective. Majority of citizens in almost every country now face innumerable problems due to the 'anti terrorist' agenda of their governments.
How worse can it be ? Success beyond Osama's wildest dreams !
You know, the whole point behind those attacks was not to destroy the West, or wipe us off the map, or any of that rubbish.
The main demands the Al Quaida originally made were that US forces withdraw from Saudi Arabia, and for Palestine to be recognised and given equal support to Israel. That was before every fundamentalist nutjob in Islam was invoking the name Al Quaida though ( PDF here [fas.org], for reference).
I'm sorry to say, no matter what the media would have you believe, these guys aren't SPECTRE. They just want to be left alone. Throw rocks at a wasps' nest, and what do you expect to happen?
My intention was not to make them sound reasonable, I'm sorry if it came across that way. I was just trying to point out that in this situation, as in so many other things, there's no clearly defined good or evil. They're not trying to reign down destruction on our heads because of our decadent Western ways. But that's the sense you pick up from so many news reports and editorials.
The GP had an element of that and I guess that's what I was objecting to.
... but those other people? We'll spy on them like crazy to protect your rights. Terrorists and all that, you know? Oh, we may or may not be letting them spy on you. And don't ask if we'll be swapping notes with them behind closed doors. Only terrorist lovers ask questions like that.
FISA - Wiretapping. No longer was probable cause criminal wrongdoing suspicion, had to show special court that person was maybe foreign agent. Originally made so that evidence collected was not used in criminal prosecutions. Right to Financial Privacy Act (1978) - Transfers the ownership of financial records from person to the bank. National Security Letter (1978) - Self-written search warrant (no judge). Allows government to go to financial institutions, ie bank to get the records the bank now "owns". Also put a gag order on bank from telling you (although that was overturned in Doe vs Ashcroft in 2008). May have been circumvented by now (shrugs). Carter ordered it may not be used in criminal prosecution. US Patriot Act - Changes definition of Financial Institution to include Post Office, your lawyer, your doctor, etc. Anybody served a national security letter put under gag order.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday July 28, @04:39AM (#28849249)
The sad thing is, things that invade our privacy and violate our basic rights are passed in a non-democratic way. The part of the EU government that is actually elected by the people, has absolutely no say in these matters. They are outraged but powerless.
The EU is a "great" tool for oppression and more powerful governments. Basically everything that no national government would be able to put into a law, can be done in the EU. There is no such a thing as this annoying democratic process.
The European Constitution is as anti-democratic as can be, both in the way it was drafted and unsuccessfully attempted to be imposed on its supposed subjects, and in its most central terms. So no, it is not ironic.
The parent post is quite correct, not a troll. If you don't believe it, read
the constitution (sorry, I mean "Lisbon Treaty"). I have, perhaps one of
the very few here who have done so, and it's disgusting.
You are partly right. But as soon as anyone tries to give the EP more power at the cost of the Council, the same people who scream about the "democratic deficit" start screaming about federalism (technically, I suppose this is correct, as a stronger EP will be at the cost of the member states, and thus federalism).
I do sincerely now hope that the Lisbon treaty will be ratified by the Irish, since it will give more say to the EP, maybe the EP will be able to stop this if the ratification is done.
You are true about the current situation. There is a sign for hope though, if the Treaty of Lisbon [wikipedia.org] will be accepted by Ireland et al, EP will have the power to rule on security matters, too.
It is a shame though that we just elected an parlament which voted against this snoop hole, which is ignored by the EU commision (that actually has the EU power at the moment).
Why is it that when Stuart Levey, head of the division of the Treasury Department dealing with cutting off funds to terrorist organizations, freezing assets, stopping forgery and counterfeiting, etc., was re-appointed by Obama, SWIFT suddenly became a good thing, whereas before in 2006 I saw it vilified as much as the warrantless wiretapping?
There is tons of talk like this [wsj.com] about swiss banks forcing US clients out. I guess the they're caving under pressure.
What I'm curious about are other tax havens people have been using in recent times above and beyond swiss banks...
Yup - most offshore jurisdictions currently shun US citizens due to their rulers tendency to demand full access, and control of their subjects assets. Offshore jurisdictions only deal with customers from authoritarian regimes if they happen to be relatively powerless on the world stage.
I regard the latest developments as merely a marketing push by the US of their offshore jurisdiction - Delaware - and a way to use political might in order to squash competition within the finance segment. Delaware is one of t
The only music shops in Europe are non-RIAA-approved ones. The organisation does not exist in Europe, even (AFAIK) in the popular new Lawsuit Flavour that the Russians got a preview of.
No, the RIAA doesn't exist in Europe... (Guess what the last A in RIAA means) However, pretty much every Nation has its own equivalent institution. I don't know them all, but in Belgium it's SABAM, in France it's SACEM. I'm sure there are others.
I will give President Change-you-can-believe-in some points for consistency. He voted to keep FISA in place, and loved the warrantless wiretaps. Mr. Obama speaks better than Bush, comes across as less abrasive, and seems to care more about the common man. Where it counts, however, he is still a power-freak who wants access to as much of your data as he can, just like Bush. All politicians suck.
They would need approvals of each and every one of EU's member states. Or at least the one that has the servers physically located.
In the latter case, most EU's banks would not be allowed to transfer any personal information to that country, until explicitly permitted by the person. Europeans are very careful about legal protection of their personal information.
I personally, had to sign a release for my employer, allowing my name and last name to be entered in the central employee database in US.
There is already a police in EU countries, you know. Unfortunately direct access to EU financial data can be used for industry espionage by US companies. And it is far more likely than next terrorists attacks in US.
Well it's not unknown for governments to share a little financial data acquired through intelligence means with industry. I *think* the US has done it before, I'm really not sure though, just a vague memory.
Of course this is a one way deal, the US gov isn't offering a reciprocal arrangement.
Its OK though (Score:5, Funny)
because it is absolutely necessary in order to fight the terrorists!! If we don't police the world then WHO WILL!?
Re:Its OK though (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
U.S. government invades and bombs for profit. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no "we". The violence of the U.S. government has not benefited U.S. citizens. If you got in the way of the controlling groups, they would kill you, delt0r, and your family.
The "anti-terror" is only a smokescreen. The U.S. government spends more money on surveillance and war than any country in the history of the world. That taxpayer money partly helps some people profit, for example: House of Bush, House of Saud [amazon.com], and hurts U.S. taxpayers.
The U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the 2nd world war [evergreen.edu]. Most or all of the interference was for profit. Quote: '... although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites' The dictators pay the corrupters, of course.
U.S. citizens don't want to believe that their government is as corrupt as it is, even though the recent financial corruption has made many of them poor.
Parent
Re:U.S. government invades and bombs for profit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever the US did earlier, which is interesting in itself, something does not compute right now.
When 9/11 attacks happened, the US let terrorists profit from the future they had subscribed in abnormal quantity. Then US come to EU monitoring our activity? Medice, cura te ipsum.
We are monitoring ordinary citizens and let corporations make business in fiscal paradises. This is a joke.
Parent
Re:U.S. government invades and bombs for profit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someday U.S. taxpayers will have to pay-off that enormous debt, which is now the equivalent of $105,000 hanging over every home.
It would be nice if our politicians would grow-up, stop acting like teenagers with credit cards, and reduce spending. But no, instead they want to saddle us with a giant Uncle Sam healthcare program that we can not afford. By the end of Obama's term, that debt will have risen to ~$150,000 per home.
Pretty soon the entire U.S. will be like bankrupt California.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>billions spent per day in Iraq - and you blame it on helping people who need hospital treatment?
It's actually 0.9 trillion total cost. And yes the war in Iraq was just as much a waste as the proposed Uncle Sam healthcare (which will cost ~12 trillion per decade).
We need to STOP SPENDING.
Get it?
If you're carrying a debt of $105,000 per home, and expected to be $220,000 by 2020, you don't just keep spending more money and digging the whole deeper. You stop spending. Judas Priest. How much more
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On top of that, add in another $75-90 trillion is in owed obligations for Medicare and Social Security. Unless you're willing to cut either, that's real debt too. Just because it isn't due today doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It starts coming due in 7 years (2016 for
Re:Its OK though (Score:5, Insightful)
And who decides what is terrorist acts?
I for one would not want US government to access my financial activity. Not because I am a terrorist but simply because I do not want a foreign government to breach my privacy. A court order that allows MY government agencies to snoop is OK though.
And as the post says. how long before US considers perfectly legal and reasonable acts to be terrorist acts?? Or for that matter simple petty crime to be terrorist acts.
Furthermore... I am not so sure I want America to police the world unrestrained. Considering that it could easily be argued that US is not democratic (remember that GWB was appointed by a court that ordered the counting of votes stopped). Considering that it is a country that kills it's citizens. Considering that it holds prisoners without due court proceedings.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, America is all about freedom, anyway; Freedom to spy foreign citizens & businesses; freedom to bear arms; freedom of markets; freedom to initiate preemptive wars; freedom to sue and be sued over petty annoyances; freedom to lobby... Lots of freedom.
Re:Its OK though (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Its OK though (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually America, as conceived, is not about freedom. It's about the individual and protection of his rights from overarching, overbearing politicians sick with power. That's why these individual rights (ownership of self, right to self-protection, right to privacy, et cetera) are encoded into the U.S. and 50 State Constitutions - to block the government and keep it under control, so the individual can live a life without being hassled at every turn.
Unfortunately in their rush to control everything like petit-dictators, the Congresscritters have decided to ignore the Supreme Laws. The phrase "shall be secure in their persons and papers" means nothing if Congress can look at your bnk account whenever they feel like it. "The two worst diseases are avarice and ambition - love of money and love of power. Leaders suffer from both." - Benjamin Franklin
Parent
Re:Its OK though (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Founding Fathers could see what became of their country, they'd probably sigh and grab their guns with a "ok, boys, time to start over".
Parent
Re:Its OK though (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>how long before US considers perfectly legal and reasonable acts to be terrorist acts??
If we deposit $10,000 or more in an account, the government makes a note of it and investigates. One local fellow was depositing $9900, $9500, $9600 in cash in order to avoid that requirement, but a suspicious Nazi... er, teller reported him anyway because he was "close enough". Then the stormtroopers... er, FBI arrested him for trying to avoid the $10,000 legel requirement.
This is the kind of society that the scared American people have created. "Any who would give up Essential liberty for temporary security deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin. All these problems would disappear if we simply enforced the Constitution as written. No warrant; no search of people or their effects (papers/bank accounts).
Parent
Open it all up. (Score:2)
Having a central government of any kind monitoring this type of thing just won't work. The best we could probably do is set up an automated system which yells BEEP! when it sees a truly suspicious transaction; then amici curiae appointed by the PEOPLE in combination with a random system to prevent infiltrators - NOT the government - are allowed access and can check the records, and indicate action may be necessary. Then, every action these people must be logged and open to public scrutiny. The servers must
Re:Its OK though (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny that they have so much vigilance, but they can't stop billions of euros illegally leaving the US and European economies towards fiscal havens where they pay no taxes and there's no accountability whatsoever. Want to fight terrorism? End the fiscal havens.
Fiscal havens played a very important part in creating the current economical crisis. Yet, the chicken shit governments of G8 and the world financial institutions haven't done shit to end this, besides a few cosmetic tricks.
This is like people in a small town protesting against the local brothel, but they all go there on Saturday night.
If I don't pay my taxes, the IRS will make my life miserable, they will come to my house and take my furniture, my car, etc. But Joe the CEO can transfer his savings to the Conga Bonga Islands through book manipulation and happily wait for retirement without paying a dime in taxes. And his money can be invested in drugs or weapons, there's no way to trace it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fiscal havens played a very important part in creating the current economical crisis.
Could you explain why do you think that?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, I see it now. The article seems to imply (between much irrelevant filler...) that some of those highly speculative hedge funds also operate in tax havens.
Yeah, it's just the Financial Times and the guy is only a professor, so it must be all bullshit.
Therefore tax havens must be responsible for the crisis.
Bombing me with strawman arguments may seem fun, but gets old pretty fast.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it's all down to tax havens. All the biggest problems in the current crisis are down to those damnable tax havens and hedge funds etc. Like the following, all HQ'ed and "regulated" in well known tax havens:
Institutions in developed countries were directly responsible for the crisis but Tax havens payed a very important role in hiding transactions. [ft.com]
Yes, if only those damn tax havens listed above were banned from doing business, the financial crisis would not have happened. If only banks were forced to be in "well regulated" onshore locations where there is accountability, there would be no recession
Now, that's just silly. When did exactly I said such?
And as we all know, bankers, lawyers and their associates in major cities are all highly ethical people
They're all greedy heartless bloodsucking motherfuckers but there is still some supervision and vigilance in regulated markets that prevents them to directly finance criminal activities. Of course, with the massive deregulation that took place in the latest years, accountability and responsibility are not in g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The agenda is to track everyone, politicians are colluding to make the world a worse place to live.
Why did the EU roll over for the US over flight passenger information, and require no such data to flow back to Europe of US citizens so THEY know how it feels to be treated like a criminal on entry to a country? Why are the EU so hell bent on everyone in Europe having ID cards, there are countries like the UK that have no ID cards, but attempts to roll them out to everyone. Why are the EU so desperate to trac
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite true. Until not so long ago, even after the year 2001, I spent about a month per year in the US. You know, visiting people, traveling around, meeting important folks I haven't seen, BlackHat LV being a corner point most of the time. I haven't been for about four years now. Instead I follow the VB con around, as long as it avoids the US.
Reason? I don't want my laptop being searched, a collection of 0day trojans being found and, besides being questioned why those exist on there, possibly being held liab
Are we civilized here? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are rules on civilization, and one is privacy. Maybe it will be a good idea to let then see one bank account, If a judge able it, but not at random... that would be outlawdish!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The economy is George W. Bush's fault
You had me going till this.
Tell me, do you work for Fox News?
Terrorism has fully achieved its objective (Score:5, Insightful)
Could we please stop spreading this myth? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, the whole point behind those attacks was not to destroy the West, or wipe us off the map, or any of that rubbish.
The main demands the Al Quaida originally made were that US forces withdraw from Saudi Arabia, and for Palestine to be recognised and given equal support to Israel. That was before every fundamentalist nutjob in Islam was invoking the name Al Quaida though ( PDF here [fas.org], for reference).
I'm sorry to say, no matter what the media would have you believe, these guys aren't SPECTRE. They just want to be left alone. Throw rocks at a wasps' nest, and what do you expect to happen?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My intention was not to make them sound reasonable, I'm sorry if it came across that way. I was just trying to point out that in this situation, as in so many other things, there's no clearly defined good or evil. They're not trying to reign down destruction on our heads because of our decadent Western ways. But that's the sense you pick up from so many news reports and editorials.
The GP had an element of that and I guess that's what I was objecting to.
We protect the rights of our citizens... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We protect the rights of our citizens... (Score:5, Insightful)
No we don't.
FISA - Wiretapping. No longer was probable cause criminal wrongdoing suspicion, had to show special court that person was maybe foreign agent. Originally made so that evidence collected was not used in criminal prosecutions.
Right to Financial Privacy Act (1978) - Transfers the ownership of financial records from person to the bank.
National Security Letter (1978) - Self-written search warrant (no judge). Allows government to go to financial institutions, ie bank to get the records the bank now "owns". Also put a gag order on bank from telling you (although that was overturned in Doe vs Ashcroft in 2008). May have been circumvented by now (shrugs). Carter ordered it may not be used in criminal prosecution.
US Patriot Act - Changes definition of Financial Institution to include Post Office, your lawyer, your doctor, etc. Anybody served a national security letter put under gag order.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Financial_Privacy_Act [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act [wikipedia.org]
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2659761702659115038&ei=tMZuSp_4CJXnlQffprFu&q=napolitano&hl=en [google.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ehm, doesn't SWIFT process international transactions by americans as well?
The EU is a totalitarian government (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is, things that invade our privacy and violate our basic rights are passed in a non-democratic way. The part of the EU government that is actually elected by the people, has absolutely no say in these matters. They are outraged but powerless.
The EU is a "great" tool for oppression and more powerful governments. Basically everything that no national government would be able to put into a law, can be done in the EU. There is no such a thing as this annoying democratic process.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, and isn't it ironic that the European Constitution, rejected by so many of the Europeans, was about to change that? (Linky [bbc.co.uk])
Re:The EU is a totalitarian government (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You are partly right. But as soon as anyone tries to give the EP more power at the cost of the Council, the same people who scream about the "democratic deficit" start screaming about federalism (technically, I suppose this is correct, as a stronger EP will be at the cost of the member states, and thus federalism).
I do sincerely now hope that the Lisbon treaty will be ratified by the Irish, since it will give more say to the EP, maybe the EP will be able to stop this if the ratification is done.
Re:The EU is a totalitarian government (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Liberal doublethink on SWIFT (Score:2)
The US wants their tax money (Score:2, Interesting)
What I'm curious about are other tax havens people have been using in recent times above and beyond swiss banks...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup - most offshore jurisdictions currently shun US citizens due to their rulers tendency to demand full access, and control of their subjects assets. Offshore jurisdictions only deal with customers from authoritarian regimes if they happen to be relatively powerless on the world stage.
I regard the latest developments as merely a marketing push by the US of their offshore jurisdiction - Delaware - and a way to use political might in order to squash competition within the finance segment.
Delaware is one of t
RIAA? Eh? (Score:2)
The only music shops in Europe are non-RIAA-approved ones. The organisation does not exist in Europe, even (AFAIK) in the popular new Lawsuit Flavour that the Russians got a preview of.
Re:RIAA? Eh? (Score:5, Informative)
No, the RIAA doesn't exist in Europe... (Guess what the last A in RIAA means) However, pretty much every Nation has its own equivalent institution. I don't know them all, but in Belgium it's SABAM, in France it's SACEM. I'm sure there are others.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Misleading (Score:2)
and it appears likely that the European Union is going to comply
The word "comply" misleadingly suggests that the EU is somehow subordinated to the US. The correct word is allow (not comply).
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
They're letting another country snoop on their citizen's financial transactions. Sounds like they're being subordinated to me.
Parent
Meet the new boss... (Score:3, Insightful)
I will give President Change-you-can-believe-in some points for consistency. He voted to keep FISA in place, and loved the warrantless wiretaps. Mr. Obama speaks better than Bush, comes across as less abrasive, and seems to care more about the common man. Where it counts, however, he is still a power-freak who wants access to as much of your data as he can, just like Bush. All politicians suck.
Fuck no! (Score:3, Informative)
In the latter case, most EU's banks would not be allowed to transfer any personal information to that country, until explicitly permitted by the person. Europeans are very careful about legal protection of their personal information.
I personally, had to sign a release for my employer, allowing my name and last name to be entered in the central employee database in US.
Re:As long as someone does it. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is already a police in EU countries, you know. Unfortunately direct access to EU financial data can be used for industry espionage by US companies. And it is far more likely than next terrorists attacks in US.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"Industry espionage"
It is not Microsoft or Coca Cola who have access to the information right now.
If the EU is trying to track something down that goes through US accounts they should not be at a dead end either.
Re: (Score:2)
Well it's not unknown for governments to share a little financial data acquired through intelligence means with industry. I *think* the US has done it before, I'm really not sure though, just a vague memory.
Of course this is a one way deal, the US gov isn't offering a reciprocal arrangement.
Re:As long as someone does it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The Airbus example is an interesting one in the "two wrongs make a right" field.